Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Staff Directory

Daniel L. Goroff

Vice President and Program Director

Daniel L. Goroff is a Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation who is especially interested in economics, finance, mathematics, the scientific and technical work force, and education. He is also Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Economics at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, where he previously served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty.

Goroff earned his B.A.-M.A. degree in mathematics summa cum laude at Harvard as a Borden Scholar, an M.Phil. in economics at Cambridge University as a Churchill Scholar, a Masters in mathematical finance at Boston University, and a Ph.D. in mathematics at Princeton University as a Danforth Fellow. His first faculty appointment was at Harvard University in 1983. During over two decades there, he rose to the rank of Professor of the Practice of Mathematics while also serving as Associate Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning and as a Resident Tutor at Leverett House.

A 1988 Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize winner, Goroff taught courses in the mathematics, economics, physics, history of science, and continuing education programs at Harvard. He was also the founding director of a Masters Degree Program in “Mathematics for Teaching” offered through the Harvard Extension School. Beginning with the international distance education courses he developed using audiographics conferencing over twenty years ago, and continuing through his most recent online course called “Decisions, Games, and Negotiations,” Goroff has been an educational innovator throughout his teaching career.

In pursuing his work on nonlinear systems, chaos, and decision theory, Daniel Goroff has held visiting positions at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in Paris, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, and the Dibner Institute at MIT.

In 1994, Goroff was elected to a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the American Association for Higher Education. During 1996-97, he was a Division Director at the National Research Council in Washington, and during 1997-98, Goroff worked for the President’s Science Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

As Director of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics from 1998 to 2001, Daniel Goroff was called to testify about educational and research priorities both by the House and again by the Senate during the 106th Congress. He also testified before the 109th Congress. A former Chair of the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction at the National Research Council, he was co-director with Richard Freeman of the Scientific and Engineering Workforce Project based at the National Bureau of Economic Research. The book they edited together is called Scientific and Engineering Careers in the United States.